Is Alfresco right for me

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proleter

Discramer: I'm complete newbie in content/document management. All I know is that we need one in order to stop the chaos.

1. The story:
Hello everybody.I'm power engineer and owner of a small engineering company in Macedonia. We have 11 employees and we design automation for the power industry. We have also recently accredited a ISO 17020 inspection body.
In last external ISO audit I came to conclusion that the documentation in my company is in chaos. Further investigation lead to the conclusion that the knowledge management is non existent(as far as I'm concerned), file structures on my employees computers are chaotic and the communication between departments is only verbal - using documents only as a last resort.
Knowing that I need way MORE than a content management system, still I started investigating how can I at least use a tool to start the change.
I tried few of these tools: Alfresco, KTDMS, Nuxeo
Alfresco was most active (looks like every question I wanted to ask was answered in the forums, wiki or documented in the manuals), promising, flexible and fast. I'm testing the labs edition. Installed Serbian localisation for the Alfresco Explorer. We spent some time to use it in the network and moving some documents in Alfresco. I'm even getting comfortable with the configuration

2. The competence:
My staff is consisted of:

1 Power engineers3 Automation engineers2 Graduates in Economics5 Skilled technichinans.

As you can see there is no system administrator or programmer in my crew. The entire network, the file servers, the mail server and backup were setup and managed by me and one of the engineers 2 years ago googling "linux SOHO [terms]" endlessly, having fun and learning on the way. It's working great for now.

3. The questions:
1. Is Alfresco good for a small company?
2. Is full time programmer employee essential for running the system?
3. Are there any consultants working in this area(Macedonia)?
4. Is administration and implemantation training available in this area? (giving strong foundation for successful use of the system)

Thanks

nicolasraoul

1. Is Alfresco good for a small company?

Yes, of course. I have seen very small companies using Alfresco. They don't use all of the features, but the basics are already a gain for them.

2. Is full time programmer employee essential for running the system?

No. It could reauire nearly no maintenance if you are just using Alfresco as a file server. Even with more complex needs, some time is required to configure Alfresco, but once it's done there is little maintenance except backups and migrations.

3. Are there any consultants working in this area(Macedonia)?

http://www.vdel.com/ seems to provide services in Macedonia too.
You can use this tool to search for partners near you: http://www.alfresco.com/partners/search.jsp?q=&r=eur&c=mk&t=&a=Search

4. Is administration and implemantation training available in this area? (giving strong foundation for successful use of the system)

I received a training in Italy, there might be others to come, if you are willing to cross the Adriatic.
Here is the schedule: http://university.alfresco.com/training/schedule.html

Best wishes for your system! 🙂
Nicolas Raoul
http://nicolas-raoul.blogspot.com